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U.N. plane crash in Haiti kills 11

Earnest — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:44:14 +0000

A U.N. rescue team confirmed there were no survivors among the 11 crew and military personnel on the plane, a Casa-212, when it went down near the town of Fonds-Verrettes, near the border with the Dominican Republic.

The dead were Uruguayans and Jordanians, U.N. spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci said.

The cause of the crash was unknown.

“The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti announces with sadness that a MINUSTAH plane, carrying 11 passengers, including the crew, crashed southeast of the commune of Ganthier,” the United Nations said in a statement.

Flooded West Africans live like a fish

Earnest — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:27:00 +0000

The only piece of furniture that survived the most recent flood in Fatou Dione’s house is her bed. It’s propped up on cinderblocks and hovers just above the water lapping at the walls of her bedroom.

The water stands a foot deep throughout her house. She shakes off her wet feet each time she climbs into her bed. To keep it dry, she tries to place her feet on the same spot so that only one corner of her mattress becomes moist.

Torrential rains have lashed Africa’s western coast for the past three months, killing 159 people and flooding the homes and businesses of more than 600,000 others, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs.

Floods hit 350,000 in West Africa: UN

Earnest — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:36:04 +0000

Some 350,000 people in West Africa have been affected by serious flooding, the United Nations said Friday, noting that “significant” rainfall has lashed the region this year.

“Since June, the rainy season has been more significant, there has been much more rain than usual,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

South African man becomes refugee after being persecuted for being white

Earnest — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:53:11 +0000

A white South African man has been granted refugee status in Canada after an immigration board ruled he faces persecution if he is returned to his native country.

Brandon Huntley, 31, from Cape Town, said he had been stabbed three times by black robbers, who called him a ‘white dog’ and a ’settler’ - a reference to South Africa’s colonial past based on racial apartheid.

He told the panel: ‘There’s a hatred of what we did to them and it’s all about the colour of your skin.’

Africans under siege in Moscow

Earnest — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:51:38 +0000

Nearly 60% of black and African people living in Russia’s capital Moscow have been physically assaulted in racially motivated attacks, says a new study. Africans working or studying in the city live in constant fear of attack, according to...

South Africa begins AIDS vaccine trial

Earnest — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:11:12 +0000

South Africa launched a high-profile trial of an AIDS vaccine created by its own researchers Monday, a proud moment in a nation where government denial, neglect and unscientific responses have helped fuel the world’s worst AIDS crisis.

After a government official lauded the project at a ceremony at Cape Town’s Crossroads shantytown, the scientist leading the research said state funding had been halted.

The contrast between Monday’s hopeful vaccine launch and the revelation of funding cuts raised questions about whether the government was backsliding on its pledge to combat AIDS.

Anna-Lise Williamson, an AIDS researcher at the University of Cape Town, told The Associated Press the clinical trial would continue with U.S. money. But she said South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology had pulled its funding in March, while the project’s other sponsor, the state electricity utility Eskom, did not renew its contract when it expired last year.

Neither government spokesmen nor Eskom immediately returned calls seeking comment about funding cuts.

MoD computers become part of Ghana’s dangerous trade in e-waste

Earnest — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:33:21 +0000

From miles away great plumes of black acrid smoke mark the site of Sodom and Gomorrah, a sprawling slum on the outskirts of the Ghanaian capital, Accra.

As one edges closer to the world’s fastest-growing e-waste dumping site at Agbogbloshie, it is the smell that hits hardest. A blend of burning rubber and chemicals clogs the nostrils, stings the eyes and hangs at the back of the throat.

The dangerous trade in obsolete electronic products is being encouraged in part by Britain. The Times saw computers that had once been used in the offices of the Ministry of Defence, and workers claimed to have seen labels on the back of discarded PCs from several British companies.

Warming outstripping Africa’s ability to feed itself

Earnest — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:01:23 +0000

By mid-century, climate change may have outrun the ability of Africa’s farmers to adapt to rising temperatures, threatening the continent’s precarious food security, warns a new study.

Growing seasons throughout nearly all of Africa in 2050 will likely be “hotter than any year in historical experience,” reports the study, published in the current issue of the British-based journal Global Environmental Change.

Six nations — Senegal, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone — are especially at risk because they will face conditions that are today unknown anywhere in Africa.

As a result, even the hardiest varieties of the continent’s three main crops — maize, millet and sorghum — currently under cultivation would probably not tolerate the conditions forecast for these countries in four decades.

A trio of researchers led by Marshall Burke, a professor at Stanford University’s Program on Food Security and the Environment, said urgent measures must be taken to stock seed banks and develop new varieties to stay a step ahead of Africa’s shifting agricultural map.

61 illegal miners found dead in South Africa

Earnest — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:04:45 +0000

At least 61 prospectors have been found dead in an abandoned gold mine, police said Tuesday, but the tragedy was unlikely to deter others from seeking riches in South Africa’s hazardous network of tunnels and shafts.

The bodies were found by other illegal miners, who brought 36 to the surface over the weekend, according to Harmony Gold mining company, which had ceased working its Eland shaft.

Another 25 bodies left at drop-off points underground were brought up on Tuesday, said Tom Smith, chief of operations for Harmony’s southern region.

Police called on relatives to help identify the victims, and said they were investigating what might have caused the deaths.

Harmony said more bodies may be in the shaft, and suggested an underground fire could have occurred. caused the deaths. It said, however, it would not send anyone to search the shaft, and noted that such abandoned mines were “extremely dangerous.”

55 Whales Die in Mass Beaching in South Africa

Earnest — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:58:28 +0000

Fifty-five whales that beached themselves in South Africa have died or been euthanized after efforts to save them were not successful.

South African marine authorities shot about 40 of the whales on Saturday, while the rest died of exhaustion and stress.

The whales had stranded themselves on the beach near Cape Town earlier in the day.

Rescue teams tried to push the whales back to the ocean using earth-moving equipment. But heavy surf pushed the giant mammals back to the beach.

Scientists plan to take samples from the carcasses to try to determine why the whales came ashore.